A never ending journey...

How the toilet tissue killed a marriage...

My grandfather, Jo Duffie Williams, died on 5 Jul 1970. I was a young adult when my grandmother, Doris Geneva Balding, decided to marry again.

It must have been the late 1970s or early 1980s.

It caught the entire family by surprise. Grandma had not indicated she was interested in a man, let alone contemplating marriage.

Regretfully, I do not recall the man's name. He was a widower who lived across the street from my grandmother.

I expect his descendants are glad I've forgotten his name. It's not often that a marriage is destroyed by toilet tissue.He moved into her house after the quickie marriage.

Things started going south almost immediately.

She had her routine - he was disrupting it by being underfoot.

He questioned her judgement in just about everything. It was very frustrating to her, as she had been the queen for quite a while.

But then, he dared to question her choice of toilet tissue. Why on earth was she spending good money on Northern toilet tissue?

Even today, I can hear the indignation in her voice...

How dare he? She had been using tissue from Northern Paper Mills ever since she had been in charge of running a household. The next thing we knew, he'd probably have a problem with snack and soda crackers from the National Biscuit Company. (Grandma always referred to products with an accompanying credit to the company that manufactured them - and none of that Nabsico twaddle for her...)

There was only one solution.

Annulment.

Promptly.

She phoned her attorney and the deed was done.

And as I had seen her do with every other piece of luck life handed her, she squared her shoulders, and soldiered on...Of course, when we started to tease her about the marriage destroyed by toilet paper, she always reminded us that an annulment means it never was.